1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to printing apparatuses, printing methods, computer-readable storage media, and printing systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
Inkjet printers are known as printing apparatuses that can print on various types of media such as paper, cloth, and film. These inkjet printers form dots on a medium to print images thereon by ejecting ink onto the medium.
Some recent inkjet printers are provided with a side-reversing function that allows printing to be performed on both the front and back sides of paper to be printed by reversing (i.e., flipping over) the sides of the paper. In such printers, the paper is reversed with a side-reversing mechanism after the front side of the paper has been printed, and then the back side of the paper is printed. Since both the front and back sides of a medium can be printed on, it is possible to keep the amount of media used small and thus achieve a significant reduction in running costs.
In such printers, however, when the paper is flipped over for printing on the back side thereof after the front side has been printed, there is a possibility that ink will adhere to a path in which the paper is reversed (i.e., to the paper reversing path) and contaminate the path if the ink that has been ejected onto the front side of the paper is not dried sufficiently. In view of such a situation, in conventional printers, a “waiting time” is set in order to dry sufficiently the ink ejected onto the front side of the paper when the paper is reversed after its front side has been printed. This waiting time is set according to, for example, the following methods:
(1) a method of setting the waiting time according to the amount of ink or recording liquid used (refer to, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. 2001-63019 or Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. 2001-83747);
(2) a method of setting the waiting time according to the type of medium to be printed (refer to, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. 6-134982); or
(3) a method of setting the waiting time according to both the amount of ink used and the type of ink or paper (refer to, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Publication No. 2001-287427).
The methods (1) through (3) described above, however, have the following drawbacks. That is, in those methods, even though the ink usage amount, the type of ink, and/or the type of medium are taken into consideration in setting the waiting time, the elapsed-time after the ink has been ejected is not. Therefore, it is difficult to say that the waiting time is set accurately in those methods. More specifically, since the amount of time from the start to the end of printing is considerably long for printing one sheet of medium, the sections that have been printed earlier will become dry while printing is being carried out, and thus, there will be a significant difference in drying conditions between the sections printed earlier and sections that are printed later. Regarding this difference in drying conditions, the waiting time will not be set appropriately if the elapsed-time is not taken into consideration, and thus, drawbacks such as that the waiting time becomes long arises.